Dragon's Dogma - Preview @ Destructoid

We haven't really been following Dragon's Dogma, though we probably should - it's a shame there's no PC port. Ovenall sends in this preview at Destructoid and the game certainly sounds worth a look:

They had me at open-world where you'll travel to kingdoms as the fated one to slay the dragon and save the world. I love that sh*t, even if I've just played a few games that sounded much like that recently. But it makes sense that another Western-style RPG is being attempted, especially after the wild success of games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, and The Witcher 2. There's still a bit of room left for more in this genre space, especially when new, standout ideas are involved.
These Western-style RPGs are really hot these days, so much so that Eastern developers are now trying their hand at the genre. Most recently, From Software's Souls franchise made a bloody splash, with the punishment of Dark Souls still fresh in gamers' minds. Now Capcom takes up sword and shield, suiting up members of the Devil May Cry and Resident Evil development teams to go into battle with their own open-world quest fest, called Dragon's Dogma. And it's gooooood.

Nice preview, and nice to see you guys covering a console-only game. Dogma really does look good. Unfortunately I have a ton of games to play already, so I won't be picking this up on release day, unless I completely break down and just have to have it. Otherwise I will wait until it's closer to half price on Ebay or something. I just have too many other games at the moment. But yeah, this game definitely looks interesting. I'll be interested to see what some of the console RPGWatchers think about it when it releases.

It sounds like a simplified Dragon Age. You control a party of four, but only one of the "pawns" is customizable. I also don't care for the online connectivity element.

You'll never explore alone, as Dragon's Dogma Pawn system has party members always at the ready for you. Pawns mystically appear from a void called the Rift, ready to serve the Arisen. They have no soul or will of their own, and are totally open to your commands and wishes, following you around loyally, calling you "master." You'll get one main Pawn that you can mould as you see fit, establishing their class, look, weapons, abilities and even behavior. Beyond this buddy you'll have access to two more Pawns from the Rift to make a party of four, though you aren't able to customize the other two.

In an interesting online connectivity twist, your main Pawn is shared online, uploaded to the rift for others to hire and use in their own party. The higher you level your Pawn, the more it's worth, and the more it will cost other players to use. Similarly, you can spend earned RC (Rift credits) to hire someone else's Pawn, adding them to your own party. These pawns can be freely dumped and hired as you see fit, enabling you to custom tailor your party for any battle or quest situation. My pawn is only worth a few hundred RC, but she has already gone out on adventures without me, always coming back with experience, money, item loot and even advice for quests I might go on later.

I don't know, the online seems interesting to me. As far as customizable, how many recent RPGs have had multiple customizable characters? Hell, many of them don't even let you customize your own character. I'll wait for reviews, but we'll see.

Just played the demo. Overall I think it was good. The character creator was most impressive and where I spent most of my time. I was able to make a main character that resembles me and a main pawn that resembles a smoking hot chick, so that's cool. The combat was indeed chaotic but also quite fun. Overall I enjoyed it, it was just a bit short with very little content other than the character creator. I'll definitely be picking it up though.

The combat was great for me. It was a bit button-mashy, but you have access to three skills by holding RB on the 360 I believe. Those skills use stamina so you have to keep an eye on that. It's alot of fun climbing on top of the giant enemies and taking whacks at their skull because you are on their back and have a clean shot. It's very effective. Your pawns AI is quite awesome too. My mage was regularly using her magic and healing us all, my warrior companion would grab goblins so I could get in a free hit, and when harpies and flying creatures hit the ground, the warrior would hold them down so they couldn't start flying again. It was really nice.

The pawns also break open boxes, open chests, pick up loot, so you do have to keep an eye on what they are picking up so you don't miss anything, but thankfully it shows in text what items they are picking up when they do so you can keep track of it. Just keep your eyes open. The pawn dialog is great too. They were shouting strategies and different dialog, and even just regularly conversing in between battles, and talking a bit about the world around us and the lore. It was really cool and made you feel like you had a party that was "alive".

But yeah, combat was a lot of fun. Your pawns are surprisingly effective too and generally do what they should. Your own attacks as I said, you have 3 special abilities to use and they are nice options. I nearly died at one point and had to eat some curative leaves to restore my health. The griffin could knock you around if he landed a clean shot on you. I was also able to somehow get the chimera's snake head to attack the goat head and bite it, but I"m not sure if I did it or one of my pawn's did. But I was on the goat head attacking it and the snake was biting the goat head, which was pretty awesome. Both battles were generally pretty easy but I imagine our party was a bit overpowered just for demo purposes. I imagine the retail version of the game will be a bit harder.

Overall, it was really a blast to play. I'm so excited to hire some cool unique pawns that other people have made, and also get my pawn rented so she comes back with some sweet goodies. I hope players out there want to rent hot chick warriors . I think they will. But yeah, very pleased with the demo, it was great.

More tidbits - the graphics were pretty nice, especially the bushes and trees which seemed to have their own physics blowing in the wind. The enemies looked really great, both large and small varieties and the environments were quite beautiful too. It looked really nice on my parent's 46" LCD screen in 1080p. The sound was quite good too and nothing sounded out of place or anything, all the sound effects were proper and the dialog was again, just great.

Oh , something else I noticed which was really cool. One of the pawns on my quest seemed to have advance knowledge of the quest already, and my party was basically leading the way most of the time. I thought that was really cool. He would say, "this way, Arisen!" and beckon me to follow him. It will definitely be cool to hire pawns who have advanced knowledge of quests and monsters, because their knowledge actually helps you in the actual gameplay of the game.

So yeah, I am definitely going to pick this up, probably on day one, even though I told myself I was going to wait until it dropped in price. It really seems like a game I need ASAP. Great stuff.

Well I gave the demo a quick spin (PS3)… I finished the quest that has you killing a Chimaera, and then I died fighting the Griffin in the other one. I had mixed feelings overall.

The visuals are impressive, and the boss battles have a truly epic feel to them. I also enjoyed the combat in general. I could see this being a blast to play in co-op, but afaik there is no co-op mode.

I don't see how this is being labled as an RPG though. I guess you could say it's an action-RPG in the purest form, but it seems more like an action-adventure to me.

This actually sounds pretty cool, will this be the game that makes me use my ps3 for something other than movies.

Couple things though about the companions (I hate the word pawns)

Do I have to allow people to recruit them or can I turn that off? If I can't turn it off, How is it handled exactly. I don't want to spend hours getting my companion setup how I want only to come back and they have different stuff and abilities. If I give them a great weapon can someone recruit them and replace it with a crap weapon?

No sakichop. Pawns are rental only. If you rent a pawn, you CAN change their equipment, but whatever new you give them they will take back with them to their original owner, along with the gear they came equipped with. You cannot take what they come with, so you can't steal from them, it's strictly a rental service. You can also give pawns that you like gifts to take back to their creators, just to be nice. You will be somewhat exchanging 2 support pawns quite frequently, so you'll have a lot of them coming and going with gifts, etc.

How it works is you go to an Inn and sleep, and that automatically updates your pawn in the online universe called the Rift. Your pawn is then uploaded to the Rift and can be hired by others. While in the possession of others you can still use your pawn. So multiple users can use your pawn at the same time with no direct effect on your game. They can send him back to you with gifts which you will receive, but also your pawn will gain knowledge and experience that can help you, such as ways to defeat certain monsters they faced while in the possession of others, or certain quests they did with other people, that knowledge will be yours when your pawn returns.

But yeah, your pawn will return to you when you sleep again at the Inn, and it will be the same as you uploaded him with, just possibly with gifts and new knowledge.